Shipwreck (13 page)

Natalie, no longer pregnant, wearing white, is seen being painted in Mediterranean sunshine.

EMMA
   (
cont.
) I felt you would be sympathetic because Natalie and I have such a close bond in George. He hardly wrote to
me in all the months I was left behind in Paris. Natalie is the one who wrote, to tell me how wonderful and kind and sensitive George is, how good with your children, how adorable he is … She has such a broad loving heart, there's room for everybody in it, it seems …

HERZEN
   (
giving her the cheque
) Ten thousand francs for two years.

She signs the receipt, takes the cheque and leaves, with her crying baby.

JANUARY
   1851

Natalie, with the painting she posed for, comes to show it to Herzen.

HERZEN
   Oh yes … Where will we put it?

NATALIE
   Oh … but it's a present for George for the New Year.

HERZEN
   How silly of me.

NATALIE
   Do you like it?

HERZEN
   Very much. If Herwegh will permit it, I'll order a copy made for myself.

NATALIE
   You're angry.

HERZEN
   What should I have to be angry about?

NATALIE
   Take it for yourself, then.

HERZEN
   Nothing would induce me.

Natalie becomes tearful and confused.

NATALIE
   George is like my child. He becomes distressed—destroyed—or elated—by the smallest things. You're a
grown man among men, you don't understand the yearning for love of a sensitive being for a different kind of love—

HERZEN
   Please speak plainly.

NATALIE
   He worships you, he lives for your approval, spare him this—

HERZEN
   Natalie, examine your heart calmly, be open with yourself, and with me. If you want me to go, I'll go—I'll go to America with Sasha—

Natalie becomes almost hysterical.

NATALIE
   How can you! How can you! As though such a thing were possible! You're my homeland, my whole life. I've lived on my love for you as in God's world, without it I wouldn't exist, I'd have to be born again to have a life at all—

HERZEN
   Plain speech, for God's sake! Has Herwegh—known you?

NATALIE
   If only you could understand!—you would beg my forgiveness for what you're saying.

HERZEN
   Has he taken you?

NATALIE
   I have taken him—to my bosom like a babe.

HERZEN
   Is this poetry or infantilism? I want to know if he's your lover.

NATALIE
   I am pure before myself and before the world—I bear no reproach in the very depths of my heart—now you know.

HERZEN
   (
exasperated
) Now I know what?

NATALIE
   That I am yours, that I love you, that my affection for George is God-given—if he went away, I would
sicken—if you went away, I would die! Perhaps
I
should be the one to go—to Russia for a year—Natasha is the only one who would understand the purity of my love. Oh, how did this happen? How did this innocent world of my loving heart shatter to fragments?

HERZEN
   Christ! Just tell me without the double-talk!—Is Herwegh your lover?!

NATALIE
   He loves me, yes—he loves me—

HERZEN
   Is he your lover? Have you been to his bed?

NATALIE
   Oh—I see. You have no objection if I take him to my heart, only to my bed—

HERZEN
   Precisely. Or his bed, or a flower bed, or up against the back of the town hall—

NATALIE
   Alexander, Alexander, this is not you, this is not the great-hearted soul I gave my tender innocent heart to when I—

Herzen shakes her.

HERZEN
   Tell me, damn your speeches! Is it true?

Natalie collapses weeping.

HERZEN
   (
cont.
) It's true, then. Say it. Say it.

NATALIE
   He is my lover! There!

HERZEN
   Thank you. That guttersnipe—that unctuous, treacherous, lecher—that
thiefl
—

NATALIE
   Oh my God, what have we done—and the children!

HERZEN
   There was a time to think of that before you besmirched all of us with your common little fall from grace—well, I shall go!

NATALIE
   No—no!—It'll kill him!

HERZEN
   Kill
him?
What kind of mockery of a love affair is this?

NATALIE
   I swear it—he'll kill himself. He's got a pistol.

Herzen laughs madly.

HERZEN
   Well, he'd better clean it if it's the one he went to war with—the barrel must be full of mud!

NATALIE
   Alexander, aren't you ashamed? I'm at your mercy, and you make a joke of a love which gave me back my life.

HERZEN
   Oh—thank you! Thank you! And what was your life before I took you from it in the clothes you stood up in?

NATALIE
   It was wretched. You're right. I gave it to you joyfully, it belongs to you to do what you want with, so kill me all at once and not little by little!

Natalie collapses sobbing. Herzen sits next to her and takes her hands, his fury spent.

HERZEN
   And you forgot to bring your hat. (
He gives way to tears, embracing her.
) Forgive me, too—forgive everything I said. They are not things I believe. I have lost something I hardly gave a thought to. My existence. My purchase on my life.

Emma enters.

EMMA
   George wants you to kill him.

Herzen laughs.

HERZEN
   Can't he ask me himself?

EMMA
   This is a calamity for both of us, but compare your behaviour with mine. Let Natalie go away with him.

HERZEN
   Of course! If she wants to.

Emma goes to Natalie and kneels by her.

EMMA
   Save him.

NATALIE
   I can't. What strength I have, I need for Alexander. I will go wherever he goes.

HERZEN
   It's him who's going. (
to Emma
) I'll pay your fares to Genoa provided you leave in the morning.

Emma gets up.

EMMA
   We can't leave. There are tradesmen's accounts we have to settle.

HERZEN
   It will be my pleasure.

Emma runs back to Natalie and flings herself down in desperation.

EMMA
   If you won't go with George, ask him to take me when he goes!—Ask him not to abandon me!

HERZEN
   You're asking my wife to plead for you …?

EMMA
   Will you?

Natalie nods. Emma gets up to go.

EMMA
   (
cont.) (to Herzen
) Egoist!

HERZEN
   But you've made yourself a slave, and this is where it's got you.

Emma leaves.

HERZEN
   (
cont
.)
Of course
I'm an egoist! How strange people are!—taking pride in humility … in servitude to others … and the whole system of duties designed by authority to keep us quiet and as little different from each other as possible … Why should we damp down everything in us which is our uniqueness, the salt of our personality … the tiny furnace which needs to be constantly fed with selfesteem to keep us warm and vital and, yes, of use to our brothers and neighbours? Egoism isn't an acquired vice. It's not an acquired virtue either. It's just part of what comes with being human, to keep us free, to create our own destiny, and our values. It's not the enemy of love! It's what love feeds on. That's why without you I'd be destroyed.

Herzen's self-assurance collapses. Natalie comforts him. She is altered back, and speaks as one who is dry-eyed.

NATALIE
   No … no … You wouldn't be destroyed, Alexander. I'm only a little part of your … your sense of worth. I can't give it back to you. But it's not lost between us. It passes to me. I'll never leave you. But think what I have lost, too … the ideal of a love which is greater the more it includes, instead of more hurtful, squalid and ridiculous.

Rocca is heard
—
and then seen
—
singing. He is laying the table and making the verandah festive.

N
OVEMBER
1851

Herzen is working on the verandah. Rocca, singing, is making the verandah and dining table festive, helped by a Maid. Rocca leaves and returns.

ROCCA
   
Principe!

Rocca admits a man who is the Russian Consul. The
CONSUL
bows. Rocca leaves.

CONSUL
   Leonty Vasilevich Ibayev. I am addressing Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, of course.

HERZEN
   You are.

CONSUL
   I am the Russian Consul in Nice.

HERZEN
   Good heavens.

CONSUL
   I have a communication to make to you.

HERZEN
   From whom?

CONSUL
   From Count Orlov.

HERZEN
   Ah. Last time it was good news. Please sit down.

CONSUL
   Thank you.

The Consul sits down and takes a document from his pocket. He reads it out.

CONSUL
   (
cont
) ‘Adjutant-General Count Orlov has notified Count Nesselrode, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that—(
He rises to his feet, inclining his head.
)—His Imperial Majesty—(
He sits again.
)—has been graciously pleased to order that Alexander Ivanovich Herzen shall return to Russia at once—of which he is to be informed, accepting from him no reasons for delay and granting him no postponement under any circumstances.' (
He folds the document and puts it in his pocket.
) What am I to answer?

HERZEN
   That I'm not going.

CONSUL
   How do you mean, ‘not going'?

HERZEN
   Just that. Not going. Remaining. Staying put.

CONSUL
   You don't understand. His Imperial—(
He stands, bows his head and sits.
)—Majesty is ordering you …

HERZEN
   Yes, and I'm not going.

CONSUL
   You mean you are humbly requesting a delay in the execution of the will of His Imperial—

HERZEN
   No, no, I can't make myself any clearer. I'm not asking for a delay. I'm not going at any time.

CONSUL
   An indefinite delay, you mean? You are ill, perhaps, too ill to travel. There would be precedents for that.

HERZEN
   One of us is mad. I'm in excellent health, especially mental health, so it must be you. Do you really think I would hold out my wrists for the handcuffs on the say-so of His Imperial—sit down, for God's sake!

CONSUL
   But what am I to do? Look on it from my position. If I were to be the intermediary for an act of disobedience to the will of His Imp—(
He starts to rise but checks himself.
)—Majesty, it would call attention to my name in a most unfavourable context. It might even look as if I'm giving myself airs … being privy to something so inimicable to His Majesty's dignity, so incommensurable with the vastness of his anger, before which nations tremble.

HERZEN
   (
amused now
) I see what you mean.

CONSUL
   Thank you.

HERZEN
   But it would be Count Orlov to whom you'd be giving the bad news.